In an attempt to bring the telecoms and Internet worlds—fixed and mobile, voice and data, personal and enterprise together, the standardized IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) architecture has been created. Among other things, IMS enables presence systems. A presence system is a system letting users or parties manage their accessibility—or their ‘presence’—, so that they can control how, where, when and by whom they can be reached. A party subscribing to the presence system will receive status notifications from another when the other party's status changes, e.g. from online to offline.
Current technology for spreading presence status is based on the principle that when the presence status of one party is changed, it will be sent to the subscribers of presence status from that party. However, this induces some problems.
First of all, when a presence status notification is about to be received in a terminal the radio part of the terminal is brought up from sleep mode and stays up for a significant time. This drains the battery of the terminal. When the user is interested in the presence status of his contacts, i.e. when he is looking at the display, i.e. is already in an active mode, this may not be a problem, but when the terminal is in overall sleep mode (e.g. when in a pocket or bag of the user) it is a real problem. One should realize that the amount of data sent in a single presence notification is very small (e.g. hundreds of bytes) while the amount of data possible to transfer during the time the radio is in active mode is considerably larger (e.g. several thousands of bytes).
Another problem with unnecessary presence notifications is that the bandwidth of the network connection of the terminal is reduced.
In the present invention, unwanted wake ups and unnecessary current consumption may be avoided by letting a party control when to receive status notifications by requesting at least a temporary storage of status messages in the presence system server. The request may be made conditional on time, the second party and other information. The request may be sent automatically and/or controlled by the user.
An aspect of the invention relates to a presence system including communication terminals belonging to a number of parties; a presence server connectable by the communication terminals over a network, the communication terminals and the server including hardware and software to implement the presence system for managing accessibility of parties, wherein: at least one communication terminal is arranged to send a STORE message to the server requesting storage of status notifications, so that transmission of status notifications from the server to that communication terminal is suspended.
Another aspect relates to a presence system, wherein said STORE message contains a time dependent condition.
Another aspect relates to a presence system, wherein said STORE message contains a condition dependent on a monitored party's address.
Another aspect relates to a presence system, wherein said STORE message contains a condition dependent on an activity in monitored party's communication terminal.
Another aspect relates to a presence system, wherein the at least one communication terminal is arranged to send a RELEASE message to the server requesting release of status notifications from the server to that communication terminal.
Another aspect relates to a presence system, wherein said RELEASE message contains a time dependent condition.
Another aspect relates to a presence system, wherein said RELEASE message contains a condition dependent on a monitored party's address.
Another aspect relates to a presence system, wherein said RELEASE message contains a condition dependent on an activity in monitored party's communication terminal.
Another aspect relates to a presence system, wherein said at least one communication terminal is arranged to send a RELEASE message automatically, when the terminal changes state from sleeping to active mode.
Another aspect relates to a presence system, wherein said at least one communication terminal is arranged to send a RELEASE message automatically, when the communication terminal enters a contact list or other application containing presence status display.
Another aspect relates to a presence system as described herein.
Another aspect relates to a communication terminal belonging to a party and connectable to a presence server over a network, the communication terminal including hardware and software to implement a presence system for managing accessibility of parties, wherein: the communication terminal is arranged to send a STORE message to the server requesting storage of status notifications, so that transmission of status notifications from the server to that communication terminal is suspended.
Another aspect relates to a communication terminal as described herein.
Another aspect relates to a presence server connectable to communication terminals belonging to a number of parties over a network, the server including hardware and software to implement a presence system for managing accessibility of parties, wherein: the server is arranged to receive a STORE message requesting storage of status notifications, so that transmission of status notifications from the server to that communication terminal is suspended.
Another aspect relates to a presence server as described herein.
Another aspect relates to a computer program product for providing a presence system in a system including communication terminals belonging to a number of parties; a presence server connectable by the communication terminals over a network, said computer program product including: computer program code means for providing a presence system as described herein.
Another aspect relates to a computer program product for providing a presence system in a communication terminal, said computer program product including: computer program code means for providing a communication terminal as described herein.
Another aspect relates to a computer program product for providing a presence system in a server, said computer program product including: computer program code means for providing a server as described herein.
These and further aspects and features of the present invention will be apparent with reference to the following description and attached drawing. In the description and drawing, particular embodiments of the invention have been disclosed in detail as being indicative of some of the ways in which the principles of the invention may be employed, but it is understood that the invention is not limited correspondingly in scope. Rather, the invention includes all changes, modifications and equivalents coming within the spirit and terms of the claims appended hereto.
Features that are described and/or illustrated with respect to one embodiment may be used in the same way or in a similar way in one or more other embodiments and/or in combination with or instead of the features of the other embodiments.
It should be emphasized that the term “comprise/comprising” when used in this specification is taken to specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps or components but does not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, components or groups thereof.”
The term “electronic equipment” includes portable radio communication equipment. The term “portable radio communication equipment,” may be referred to below as a “mobile radio terminal,” “mobile phone,” “mobile device,” or “mobile terminal” and the like, and includes all equipment such as mobile telephones, pagers, communicators, i.e., electronic organizers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), smartphones, portable communication apparatus or the like. The term “electronic equipment” also may include portable digital music devices, e.g., iPod devices, mp3 players, etc. A portable radio communication device may also be a portable digital music device.